The present invention relates to a printer and, particularly, to a printer of the sublimation type in which factors, such as factors determining color density, which are necessary to produce a constant print quality regardless of variations of an ink sheet and/or variation of printer used, can be set arbitrarily by sending a command through a host computer.
FIG. 11 shows, in block form, a typical example of a conventional printer together with a host computer connected to the printer.
In FIG. 11, the printer 2 comprises an operation panel 3 for regulating the density of respective colors of a print, a CPU 4 connected to the operation panel 3, a data input circuit 5 connected to the external host computer 1, such as personal computer, for receiving image information therefrom, an image memory 6 connected to the input circuit 5 for storing image information, a fixed density regulator circuit 7 connected to the CPU 4 and the image memory 6 and including, for example, a ROM for controlling the image information read out from the image memory 6 according to color regulation information supplied from the operation panel 3 through the CPU 4, a thermal head drive circuit 8 connected to the fixed density regulator circuit 7, and a thermal head 9 connected to the thermal head drive circuit 8.
Since characteristics of an ink sheet and/or printer to be used to print image data supplied by the host computer 1 vary from printer to printer, it is necessary, in order to obtain a satisfactory print using any available printer and ink sheet, that the colors Y (yellow), M (magenta), C (cyan) and BK (black), of the print be regulated in density according to the printer and ink sheet used.
In the conventional printer 2, such regulation has been performed by an operator through the operation panel 3. That is, one of a plurality of predetermined density regulating data preliminarily stored in the fixed density regulator circuit 7 is selected by the operator through the operation panel 3 and the CPU 4 and data from the host computer 1 are passed through the data input circuit 5 and the image memory 6, regulating in color density according to the selected regulation data in the fixed density regulator circuit 7 and printed through the thermal head drive circuit 8 and the thermal head 9.
The user looks at the resultant print and regulates the densities of the various colors through the operation panel 3 if the print is not satisfactory, and this procedure is repeated until a fully satisfactory print is obtained.
Since, in the conventional printer mentioned above, the regulation of color density is performed repeatedly by trial and error, it is troublesome and inefficient.